As part of the Dell President's Day Sale that kicks off this week, Alienware's only RTX 5090 equipped gaming computer sees its biggest discount (by far) of the year. The Alienware Area-51 Intel Edition RTX 5090 gaming PC starts at just $4,299.99 after an $1,150 discount with no coupon code or hoops to jump through. Arguably an even better deal is the Alienware Area-51 AMD Ryzen X3D Edition RTX 5090 gaming PC, which drops to $4,449.99. Both systems ship for free.
These are the best deals I've seen for an Area-51 RTX 5090 desktop and beats out 2025 pricing, despite the fact that RAM and GPU prices are on the rise. In fact, as of today, these are the lowest prices for an RTX 5090 prebuilt across all brands and retailers. Once these deals expire, they probably won't resurface for several months.
Alienware Area-51 RTX 5090 Gaming PC From $4,300
The Alienware Area-51 is Dell's flagship gaming PC. Unveiled during last year's CES, the Area-51 is a super-sized upgrade to the mainstream Aurora R16 system. The significantly larger chassis features more premium build quality and a redesigned cooling system with greater airflow. This is the only model that Dell allows you to configure with the hot and power hungry GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card (the Aurora R16 doesn't give you this option). The first wave of Area-51 systems featured Intel CPUs exclusively, with AMD X3D options released much later in November.
Depending on the configuration you choose, you're getting either an Intel Core Ultra 7 265F or AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU, GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card, 32GB or DDR5-6400MHz RAM, and a 1TB SSD. Most of these specs are customizable. Additional system details include a 360mm all-in-one liquid cooling system for the CPU and a massive 1,500W 80Plus Platinum power supply that allows plenty of headroom for future upgrades.
The Core Ultra 7 is a good gaming CPU, but the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is better
The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 is an excellent processor that will perform well in both games and productivity tasks, thanks to its 5.3GHz max turbo frequency and 20 cores. You can also upgrade to the Ultra 7 265K for just $50.
However, if you want plan to get this rig specifically for gaming, then the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is considered to be one of the best gaming processors and outperforms any Intel or AMD non-X3D chip in games thanks to AMD's 3D-V-Cache technology. For only $150 price premium, it's worth the upgrade.
Although the 9800X3D is an absolute speed demon for gaming, it only has eight cores. If you regularly use your PC for non-gaming applications that benefit from as many cores as possible, then you can upgrade to an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D 16-core processor, which doubles the core count while offering similar gaming performance, for an additional $250.
The RTX 5090 is the most powerful graphics card ever
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 has emerged as the most powerful consumer GPU on the market. Although with this generation Nvidia has prioritized software updates, AI features, and DLSS 4 technology to improve gameplay performance, the 5090 still boasts an impressive 25%-30% uplift over the RTX 4090 in hardware-based raster performance. If you want the absolute best performance for your gaming PC, there is literally no other option from any other brand.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
